Sanctity of life, abortion and euthanasia — Judaism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 2, 2.3 (Judaism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

Jewish law permits breaking the Sabbath to save a life that might last only a few more hours. The value is not being calculated by how much life is rescued. It is infinite rather than large — and once you see that, both the permissiveness about abortion and the absolute refusal of euthanasia follow from the same sentence.

What it means

Pikuach nefesh is the principle that saving a life overrides almost every other commandment, including Shabbat observance and the fast of Yom Kippur. It is the concept the whole unit turns on, and an answer without it has left out the distinctive Jewish material.

Rodef means pursuer, and it is the legal category under which a foetus threatening the mother's life may be removed. Goses is a person in the final stage of dying, whose death may not be hastened and need not be obstructed. Refuah is healing, and Jewish law derives a positive duty to heal from the obligation to restore what somebody has lost.

The positions follow. Where a pregnancy threatens the mother's life, Jewish law requires that her life be saved: she is a full legal person and the foetus is not yet. Euthanasia is forbidden even at the patient's request, because deliberately ending a life is the taking of a life. But aggressive prolonging of a death that has already begun is not required, which is what the goses category is for.

The disagreement is about the range of cases rather than about the value. Orthodox Judaism decides case by case through rabbinic authority, permitting abortion where there is serious threat to the mother's life or health and constraining withdrawal of treatment tightly. Reform Judaism permits abortion on broader grounds, including serious foetal abnormality and the mother's wellbeing, and gives more weight to patient autonomy at the end of life. Conservative positions typically sit between.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning is that infinite value cannot be traded. If a life is of infinite worth, no quantity of anything else outweighs it — which is why Shabbat is set aside to save one, and why suffering, however severe, cannot be the reason to end one.

The same principle cuts the other way at the beginning of life. Because the mother is a full legal person and the foetus is not yet, a conflict between them is not balanced but determined: her life is saved. That is why Judaism can be permissive about abortion in the hardest case and absolutely restrictive about euthanasia, and both follow from refusing to put a life on a scale.

The end-of-life position is harder to defend than the beginning-of-life one, and a good answer says so. Infinite value gives no way to weigh a life the person living it experiences as unbearable, which is the strongest form of the autonomy objection. Jewish law answers that a person does not own their life, and points to full pain relief and to the permission not to obstruct a death already beginning.

That last distinction — between hastening death and not obstructing it — does real work and is not merely verbal, since it is the same distinction secular palliative medicine uses. It is where the Jewish position and modern medical practice converge most closely.

Where it comes from

• Rabbinic teaching — Pikuach nefesh; Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 85b (with Sanhedrin 37a) (translated)

  Saving a life overrides almost every other commandment.

  The preservation of life outranks nearly all religious obligations, including Shabbat observance and fasting on Yom Kippur.

  What it is doing here: Carries the entire unit: it ranks the preservation of a life above nearly every other obligation and therefore settles the hardest cases in both directions.

• The Torah — Genesis 1:27 (translated)

  God created humankind in his own image.

  B'tzelem Elohim — every human bears the divine image, which grounds the infinite value of a human life and the equality of all people.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the reason the value is infinite rather than merely great, since what bears the divine image cannot be priced.

• The Torah — Deuteronomy 30:19 (translated)

  I have set before you life and death ... therefore choose life.

  Free will stated as a command: the choice is genuinely the human being's, and it is a real choice with real consequences.

  What it is doing here: Frames the tradition's orientation as choosing life, which is the instruction the medical rulings are all built to obey.

• The Torah — Leviticus 19:18 (translated)

  You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

  The command from which the surrounding chapter's social laws follow — fair wages, honest weights, care for the deaf and the blind, and the stranger.

  What it is doing here: Grounds the duty to relieve suffering in obligation to the person rather than in sentiment, which is what makes pain relief a requirement rather than a kindness.

Where it bites

It shows in Jewish medical ethics as a working discipline. Doctors are obliged to break Shabbat to treat a patient. Organ donation is widely supported precisely because saving a life outweighs the usual requirements about the treatment of a body. Hospices and full pain relief are supported. And rabbis are routinely consulted on end-of-life decisions in Orthodox communities, which is what a case-by-case legal method looks like in practice rather than in theory.

It also shows in what does not happen: there is no Jewish position that all treatment must be continued at all costs, because the goses category exists exactly to prevent that reading.

What people get wrong

People think: Judaism forbids abortion in all cases.

Actually: Where the mother's life is at risk, Jewish law requires it, because she is a full legal person and the foetus is not yet. Assuming the Catholic position is the religious position is the recorded error here, and it misdescribes a tradition whose reasoning runs in a different direction entirely.

People think: Contraception and abortion raise the same question for religious believers.

Actually: Contraception prevents conception; abortion ends a pregnancy that has begun. Traditions treating them alike are the exception rather than the rule, and in Judaism they are analysed through different principles — which is why merging them produces an answer about neither.

People think: Jewish law requires every possible treatment for a dying patient.

Actually: The goses category says otherwise: a death that has begun need not be obstructed, even though it may not be hastened. Jewish law distinguishes between the two, and the distinction is the same one palliative medicine uses rather than a piece of religious hair-splitting.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Give pikuach nefesh by name; it is the concept the whole unit turns on and its absence is fatal.
• Use it in both directions — the Shabbat case, and the mother's-life case — because that is what shows it is not applied selectively.
• Distinguish hastening death from not obstructing it, and name the goses.
• Never attribute a blanket prohibition on abortion to Judaism; the law requires it in the hardest case.
• Keep contraception and abortion apart, since the examiners record the merge.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

Judaism holds life sacred and then makes that principle do unusual work: pikuach nefesh, the saving of a life, overrides almost every other commandment, including Shabbat. The specification adds the importance of relieving suffering, and the two principles between them explain the Jewish positions — abortion is required where the mother's life is at risk, and euthanasia is forbidden while aggressive prolonging of dying is not required.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Pikuach nefesh (also pikuach nefesh doheh)

Saving a life; the principle that overrides almost every other commandment.

Rodef (also rodef din)

Pursuer; the legal category under which a foetus threatening the mother's life may be removed.

Goses (also gosses)

A dying person in their final days, whose dying may not be hastened and need not be obstructed.

Euthanasia

Deliberately ending a life to end suffering; forbidden in Jewish law as the taking of a life.

Refuah (also refuah shlemah)

Healing; the duty to heal, which Jewish law derives from the obligation to restore what is lost.

What Judaism teaches

• shared — Life is of infinite value, and saving a life overrides almost every other commandment — Shabbat, fasting and dietary law included.
• shared — Deliberately ending a life is forbidden, so euthanasia is not permitted even at the patient's request.
• shared — Where a pregnancy threatens the mother's life, Jewish law requires that her life be saved; the foetus is not yet a full legal person.
• divided — The traditions differ over abortion where the mother's life is not at risk, and over how far treatment may be withdrawn from a dying patient.
  • Orthodox Judaism — Abortion permitted where there is serious threat to the mother's life or health, decided case by case by rabbinic authority; withdrawal of treatment tightly constrained.
  • Reform (Progressive) Judaism — Permits abortion on broader grounds including serious foetal abnormality and the mother's wellbeing, and gives more weight to patient autonomy at the end of life.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that infinite value cannot be traded. If a life is of infinite worth, then no quantity of anything else outweighs it — which is why Shabbat is set aside to save one, and why suffering, however severe, cannot be the reason to end one. But the same principle cuts the other way at the beginning of life: the mother is a full legal person and the foetus is not yet, so where they conflict the answer is not balanced but determined.

Sources of authority

• Rabbinic teaching — Pikuach nefesh; Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 85b (with Sanhedrin 37a) (translated)

  Saving a life overrides almost every other commandment.

  The preservation of life outranks nearly all religious obligations, including Shabbat observance and fasting on Yom Kippur.

  How to use it: It is the principle that makes Jewish ethics practical rather than absolutist: the law itself provides for setting the law aside when life is at stake.

  What it does not settle: It permits, and often requires, abortion to save the mother. It does NOT extend to euthanasia — the distinction between saving a life and ending one is where the argument sits.

• The Torah — Genesis 1:27 (translated)

  God created humankind in his own image.

  B'tzelem Elohim — every human bears the divine image, which grounds the infinite value of a human life and the equality of all people.

  How to use it: Because the value comes from God, it belongs to a person whatever their condition — the same premise reaches life, disability, race and human rights.

  What it does not settle: It does not settle abortion. Jewish law can require abortion to save the mother's life, which follows from the same premise read alongside pikuach nefesh.

• The Torah — Deuteronomy 30:19 (translated)

  I have set before you life and death ... therefore choose life.

  Free will stated as a command: the choice is genuinely the human being's, and it is a real choice with real consequences.

  How to use it: It is the cleanest scriptural answer to determinism in any of the six religions — God's foreknowledge and human choice are held together rather than resolved.

  What it does not settle: The philosophical problem of how divine knowledge and human freedom coexist is not solved by it.

• The Torah — Leviticus 19:18 (translated)

  You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

  The command from which the surrounding chapter's social laws follow — fair wages, honest weights, care for the deaf and the blind, and the stranger.

  How to use it: Reading it with its own chapter turns it from a sentiment into legislation, which is a much better answer than quoting the verse alone.

  What it does not settle: Shared with Christianity, so it is not distinctively Jewish.

Different interpretations

• The foetus read as potential life with real but lesser standing, which is the classical position; and read by some contemporary voices as having more or less standing than that, which is where the movements differ.
• Withdrawal of treatment read as permitted for a goses because nothing may obstruct a death that has begun, and read narrowly to prevent it becoming euthanasia by another name.
• Relief of suffering read as a duty that may justify pain relief shortening life, and read as constrained by the prohibition on hastening death; the intention distinction does the work.

Differences within Judaism

The sanctity principle and pikuach nefesh are shared without dispute. The disagreement is about the range of cases, and it is a difference of legal method rather than of value.

• Orthodox Judaism — Case-by-case rabbinic decision; narrow grounds for abortion; strong constraints at the end of life.
• Reform (Progressive) Judaism — Broader grounds for abortion and greater weight to the patient's own decisions in dying.
• Conservative (Masorti) Judaism — Works within halakhah while permitting development; positions typically sit between the other two.

Application to the issue

It shows in Jewish medical ethics: doctors are obliged to break Shabbat to treat a patient; organ donation is widely supported precisely because pikuach nefesh outweighs the usual requirements about the body; hospices and pain relief are supported; and rabbis are routinely consulted on end-of-life decisions in Orthodox communities.

Arguments supporting

• Pikuach nefesh is the strongest statement of the value of life on this specification. — A religion that suspends its own most distinctive practice to save one life has made its priority unambiguous. (judaism)
  Answered by: Infinite value also removes any way to weigh a life against quality of life, which is what makes the euthanasia cases so hard.
• Treating the mother as the full person resolves the hardest case cleanly. — Where the two conflict, Jewish law does not agonise: her life is saved. (shared)
  Answered by: The clarity depends on a legal distinction about personhood that many would contest in either direction.

Arguments challenging

• A competent person in unbearable pain should be able to choose to die. — Autonomy governs every other medical decision. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Jewish law denies that a person owns their life, and points to full pain relief and the permission not to obstruct a death already beginning.
• Treating life as of infinite value produces bad decisions at the end of life. — It can require treatment that prolongs dying rather than living. (non-religious)
  Answered by: The category of the goses exists precisely for this, and Jewish law does not require obstruction of a death that has begun.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Humanists generally support assisted dying with safeguards and abortion on the woman's decision, reasoning from autonomy and the reduction of suffering. They regard the foetus's moral status as increasing with development rather than being fixed by law, and would resist any framework in which a religious authority decides a medical question.

Examinable throughout Paper 1. Nothing here earns a mark on Paper 2.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether life has infinite value or very great value. Infinite value makes every trade-off impossible, and that is what produces the hardest cases here.

Defensible conclusions

• Pikuach nefesh makes Judaism's position unusually coherent: the same principle that suspends Shabbat also determines the abortion case, and it is not applied selectively.
• The end-of-life position is harder to defend than the beginning-of-life one, because infinite value gives no way to weigh a life the person living it experiences as unbearable.
• The distinction between hastening death and not obstructing it does real work and is not merely verbal, since it is the same distinction secular palliative medicine uses.

Not defensible

• Saying Judaism forbids abortion in all cases; where the mother's life is at risk, Jewish law requires it.
• Saying Jewish law requires every possible treatment to be given to a dying patient; the goses category says otherwise.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Jewish beliefs about the sanctity of life. Short phrases only.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two attitudes developed, one of which should be pikuach nefesh, since it is the distinctive principle.
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain Jewish attitudes to euthanasia: the sanctity of life, pikuach nefesh, the duty to relieve suffering, and the goses distinction.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Life is sacred and must always be protected.' Pikuach nefesh supports the statement and the mother's-life rule complicates it.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the Catholic position is the religious position and attributing it to Judaism.
• Treating contraception and abortion as the same question.
• Omitting pikuach nefesh, which is the concept the whole unit turns on.

“Contraception and abortion raise the same question for religious believers.” — Contraception prevents conception; abortion ends a pregnancy that has begun. Traditions that treat them alike are the exception, not the rule.

Write instead: Most religious traditions treat them separately. Catholic teaching rejects both, for different reasons. Many Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh positions accept contraception while restricting abortion. Some methods are contested precisely because a tradition disputes whether they prevent or end — and noticing that is a genuinely sophisticated point. (Named in the 2023 examiner report for Paper 1.)

Grade 9 insight

Pikuach nefesh permits breaking Shabbat to save a life that might last only a few more hours — the value is not calculated by how much life is saved. A Level 4 answer draws out the consequence: because the value of a life is infinite rather than large, it cannot be divided or compared, which is exactly why Jewish law can be permissive about abortion to save a mother and absolutely restrictive about euthanasia. Both follow from refusing to put a life on a scale.

Carry on through Judaism

• Previous unit: 2.2 · The meaning and purpose of life
• Next unit: 2.4 · Human relationships
• Sanctity of life, abortion and euthanasia in the other religions: Buddhism · Christianity · Hinduism · Islam · Sikhism
• Side by side: Sanctity of life, abortion and euthanasia across the six religions — Is human life sacred, and may it ever be deliberately ended?
• All of Judaism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification